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Dale Thomas keen to avoid Cloke-style circus

Joe Barton

Off-contract Collingwood star Dale Thomas is in no rush to re-sign with the AFL powerhouse, but is wary of letting his negotiations turn into the circus which disrupted Travis Cloke's season last year.

Talk surrounding Cloke's contract dragged on for a year, coinciding with a form slump for the star forward before he finally put pen to paper on a new five-year deal with the Magpies.

Thomas says he won't begin contract talks until he fully recovers from off-season ankle surgery, but is desperate to avoid the saga which engulfed Cloke and the club last season.

"Hopefully it doesn't turn into some sort of circus like has happened at other clubs and a little bit last year with Trav Cloke," Thomas said on Saturday.

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"It's one of those things that'll play out. There's a lot of things that I have to do first before I would even start talking contracts with the Pies.

"Hopefully I play some good footy and it'll all take care of itself.

"... At the minute I don't think they'd be too keen to talk contracts and I don't know if I would be either with a bung foot and obviously coming off not a great season."

The 25-year-old's foot hampered him throughout last year and could yet rule him out of the NAB Cup - but he remains confident of playing North Melbourne on Easter Monday in round one.

"Round one is the aim .. it would be nice to play NAB Cup if I could, but I'll aim for round one - that's the real stuff," he said.

"If I can get a game in before, we'll see how we go.

"(Last year) was just injury interrupted. It's hard to find consistency at the best of times, at the level of the AFL.

"But when you're not quite at your physical best it does make it a lot tougher, in that regard it was quite frustrating.

"But I've had the ankle fixed up now, hopefully I'll be ready to go and I can get stuck into it, stay injury free and hopefully have a good season."